Indiapreneur #1 pre-event networking session

I attended Indiapreneurs #1, a networking event with a focus on integrating the entrepreneurship network between India and Stockholm with a focus on doing business in India, hosted by Synch Law. I felt that the focus of this session on doing business while overcoming cross-cultural differences was especially refreshing. Every speaker had different insights to share about their entrepreneurship experiences in India, but I found the points put across by Mr Anil Raj, the CEO & Co-Founder at OMC Ltd especially pertinent to what I have learnt in class.

Mr Raj is a veteran of the telecom industry who has previously held senior positions in Ericsson, and went on to co-found the startup OMC Ltd, an India-based power company that aims to provide power to rural parts of India through renewable sources.

I found Mr Raj’s presentation on how he came up with the idea to create the startup OMC Ltd especially relevant to our recent lesson on opportunity, cost and innovation. Mr Raj described how he initially came up with the idea of providing power to the Indian rural population, and proceeded to dominate the market through implementing this idea. Mr Raj highlighted that power is a universal necessity, hence OMC Ltd did not face any first mover disadvantage having to educate the market about their product, but conversely had a first mover advantage as many companies doing business in India mainly focus on developing products for users in the big cities, and leave out the majority of the Indian rural population. OMC Ltd focused on exploiting this opportunity in a timely manner, solving a long-running pain of a lack of readily available power that their market faces.

I also found Mr Raj’s portrayal of OMC Ltd’s business model and creation pertinent to our lesson on business models. OMC Ltd’s business model identified the rural Indian population as a niche customer segment, and created a value proposition to try to solve the pain of the rural population’s lack of available energy. Mr Raj says that having established OMC Ltd’s core business in India, they have plans to apply the same business model to other niche markets, looking towards the Philippine’s rural population to expand his business. I felt that this was a very relevant example of the importance of focusing on a niche segment to establish a business model, and then applying and adapting a tested business model to different market segments.

Apart from the relevance of Mr Raj’s speech to the lessons in class, Mr Raj also highlighted many aspects of India’s business climate that would be relevant to anyone who wants to do business in India. India is a fast growing economy with many different socio-economic groups, and entrepreneurs must be comfortable dealing with the price and quality sensitive Indian market, and the many layers of bureaucracy to overcome to get anything done. From this, I started to realize how much culture can affect the way people do business and start companies in different countries.

Although I was initially apprehensive to go for Indiapreneurs #1 as I was neither from India, nor had any idea about the business climate in India, but I left the event thankful to have come, and listened to many inspiring speakers whose entrepreneurship experiences were both inspiring and enriching to listen to.

In my opinion, there are a few reasons of why Elon Musk releases their patent to the public. Firstly, he wants to control the standards in the industry and speed up the adoption of electric vehicles. This is aligned with their company’s mission to “accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible.” By obtaining the patents in the first place, he is discouraging any other company from adopting the same technology to innovate and create a mass market for electric vehicles.

Secondly, having competitors who leverage Tesla patent work actually serve as validation such that their technologies are viable and desirable. It can serve as a strategy to allow Tesla to reach a larger crowd – Crossing the Chasm, over a doubting public.

Thirdly, Tesla have made early investments into production facilities like the Gigafactory, they may be able to change their business model such as to manufacture parts for other automobile manufacturers who are in the same playing fields. This will provide them with an alternate revenue stream until the time when those manufacturers have developed their own supply chains.

Lastly, having such an open environment that encourages information sharing may be the best way to spur creativity and allowing Tesla to challenge themselves constantly to innovate and improve in order to stay in the age of technological advancement.

We will have great program planned  for the course and I hope you will enjoy the class.

Tech Based Entrepreneurship Course Outline 2016

Schedule and Readings 2016

and please read carefully and do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions.

A few week-ends ago I participated in the EIT Alumni Start-Up Days, which was a week-end in order to work on their business ideas, focusing on sustainable development. Even if most of the participants were EIT students so our background was not that diverse, I believe that I have learnt a lot from this week-end.

What happened in the event?

• Friday evening: Meeting with the other participants, mingling and it was the start! We first listened to speeches from Entrepreneurs or people working in incubators. Then participants who already had ideas to work on presented it. I thought it was more interesting to start from scratch and go through the whole ideation process in just a week-end. In this way, we teamed up with another EIT Digital student (actually, Olga) and two students from EIT KIC Energy. Our idea at that time was to create a plug in order to save energy by avoiding electronic devices from staying on stand-by as it consumes more than what we think. This idea was very broad and not well-defined but I still thought it was interesting as it really dealt with sustainability.
• Saturday: Work on the idea – Develop the idea by looking at the problem. From an initial view was to create a plug to “Unplug your energy” for private individuals but after looking at the possible customer segments, we decided to go for companies who have more to gain in terms of energy but also financially. Research needed to be done to see what already existed in the market to find how we could differentiate ourselves. Most of the ideas already existed and we got confronted with technological problems that could not be solved, for example a smart plug would consume more than a computer in stand-by mode. We completely changed our idea to a service agency calculating the consumption of energy of companies to then tell them which actions they should take. Thanks to the mentors and more work on the subject, we had a clear idea concerning our service and our customer segment at the end of the day.
• Sunday: Last day to work on the idea – using the Business Model Canvas. With the help of mentors, we focused on several points and then worked on the pitch. After lunch, the pitch presentations were done in front of a jury composed of a business coach, an entrepreneur and a product manager fond of innovation. Even if we did not win, it was a great experience that I would happily live it again.

What did I get from it?

There were many moments that were interesting, from which I increased my knowledge about entrepreneurship, open and user innovation but also, more generally, I was able to network. First of all, I think the insights from the Entrepreneur were very good, as it was the co-founder of Banana Charge and his start-up is brand new. In this way, it was interesting to see how he dealt with the launch and what were the very first issues they had as other entrepreneurs tend to forget them when they speak about their start-up.

Moreover I believe the mentors were of great help – not only did they give us help but they also shared their experience with entrepreneurship and gave us hints as to what works, what investors want to hear during a pitch, etc. As it is often said, it is very good to have more points of view regarding an idea and mentors are the “best” points of view: they have already got to know the customer segment, most of the time and they know what they do not need.

At the end of the each pitch, it was very nice to get questions from the jury but also from our peers. In this way, we could have an insight from expert people but also other people “like us”. Even though the jury was the only one to pick the winners, it made the result of the competition less controversial and it also gave a lot of credit to the whole event, from my point of view.

What can be concluded from this experience?

Try it yourself, you will like it and you will want to do it again. And last, a competition is all about collaboration so don’t scare yourself, everything is going to be fine!